Carmina hangs idly from a crude sort of bone swing hanging off the enormous carcass. "Please." She motions to another swing next to her.

A tense moment passes as you consider how this may be yet another trap. Simply attacking her right now would do away with any chance of surprise, but her serene yet uncharacteristically morose expression show nothing sinister, for the time being at least.

You eye the patchwork frame for a moment before slowly settling into the rigid makeshift seat. "You're not making this war easy." You sigh as your legs dangle slowly in the air.

Carmina builds a slight bit of momentum. "Neither are you." She teases. "Maybe it'd be best to finish you off here and now?"

You match her swing. "A similar thought passed through my mind."

She slows. "Maybe I didn't come here for that." She looks down to her pristine shoes. "Maybe I just wanted to swing for a little while."

Again, strange to hear such a reserved response, perhaps the fighting is getting to her.

"You don't seem concerned about why I came here." You look over to her. "We're still on opposite sides, we still have the goals we've been striving for so long."

She quietly broods over your words before looking directly above her. "Have you ever tried to swing all the way over the top before?"

You remember a brief experience you had with a broken swing set as a child, any attempt to swing over the top of that would have likely collapsed the entire thing. "Never have."

She smiles while still looking up. "All the other kids and I in the Order would always try to make it over the top of our swing set. Day after day, week after week, we would never succeed no matter what we did, but we really enjoyed trying." She looks forward again. "Then we forgot about the whole entire thing one day, or... they did."

You never knew that such an idyllic childhood was possible anymore.

"But we never really considered what would happen when one of us finally did make it over the top." She continues. "The view must be amazing for that precious moment, but after that you're right back where you started, only this time you have less chain to help you over again."

Carmina swings fiercely, dress ruffling around her legs, shaking the entire carcass with her spurt of vigor, but she stops as quickly as she started, and drifts apathetically in the air. "Carmina is dead." She pauses before elaborating. "She died months ago and only a husk of her memories remains, and there's less and less of that every passing battle. Her enthusiasm was the most recent loss."

The price to pay for her apparent immortality, you doubt she fully understood what she was getting into when she first accepted The Broodmother's gift, but soon she won’t know how to object even if she wanted to.

Her feet kick at the sickly dust hanging on the ground. "Her faith and ambition are just blurred memories, the same with her goals.” She places a hand on her chest. “My goals are one with countless others, yet here I am, swinging."

"You're caught in between wanting to fight, but not wanting to lose what little of Carmina remains, and not wanting to fight, but betraying your loyalties." You summarize.

A mindless enemy is usually much easier to defeat anyway.

"Either way...fight and die, run and live, I want neither." She gives one last feeble kick to the dust. “Where’s the good fortune that she would always go on about?”

“Gone with her, perhaps.” You’re about to pull yourself to your feet, but the state of your left hand sends to sliding back down.”

Carmina notices your pain. “I can fix that hand.” She rises to her feet immediately.

You throw her a skeptical look.

She shakes her head. “I felt pain from every single one of us that you’ve killed, every single one. But regardless of how we feel, she never hated you, and whatever tiny part of her still lingers wants to help you.” She holds out her small hand.

You offer your own hand but remain wary of her attempting to infect you in the same way the soldiers were, but it’s certainly not like you can’t do any harm to her from this position.

“It might sting a little.” She smiles slightly. Her normal delicate hand twists into thin fibers of sinew and slide effortlessly under the skin of your hand.

You feel the dull ache and heat of your bones being mended and torn muscles regenerated, but feel no attempts to corrupt your body in any sort of way. “You know, I’m perfectly fine offering a sort of advantage any future battles, so long, of course, that it doesn’t harm me personally.”

She warm and knowing smile forms on her face. “It’s not very nice to harm those who depend on you, or who trust you, Sophia.” She lightly taps your wrist as punishment.

You look over Carmina’s face and realize the one speaking right now is the same person that you met months ago, or perhaps better put, the voice of her memory

Her eyes redden and her mouth contorts slightly. “I’m leaving soon, so you’re going to have to keep that in mind. Remember it.” Tears fall on her hand and yours.

She looks away towards the distant dilapidated buildings. “I trusted them all.” She lets out a messy and choked laugh. “I trusted and loved them all so much…and they all lied to me.” She sobs tightly clenching your still mending hand. “But, Sophia.” She turns back to you. “You’re still my friend, right? Right!?” Her voice goes high.

Her wide eyes beg you for an answer.

You smile calmly. “I am.” You lie.

Carmina lets out a relieved breath and her hand pulls away from yours. “Then I’m really, truly lucky to die in the company of my friend.” Her brilliant smile lingers for a moment and then fades.

“While I thank you for finally freeing us from that girl, I’m afraid your offer just isn’t good enough for us.” Carmina shakes her head. “No, no, no.” She looks deep into your eyes, tears already drying up. “You’re the one we want to harm the most.”

A sharp spur of bone shoots out from Carmina’s abdomen. You react immediately by teleporting away, but it managed to pierce shallowly into your upper arm before that.

She burrows into the ground and only a few moments later does a massive insect-like creature explode from the ground. It’s exoskeleton pulsing like the flesh that makes up this realm and it stretches for dozens of feet in front of you.

There’s no such thing as walk to clear your mind in this realm, it seems.

You grab your right arm, which begins to sting more and more with every passing second and let out a bolt of flame directly into its face.

It lets out a shrill shriek of pain just as you collapse to your knees from the sudden shockwave of agony from your arm. You watch as the large hole your flame carved is slowly filled in by flesh.

It’s going to take more than one shot to finish the thing off, but you’re not sure if want to endure that amount of pain in the exhausted state you’re in.

You’re not going to put yourself through any unneeded pain when you have a perfectly capable army a short distance away from you.

You attempt to take off, but your right wing locks up in pain, sending you crashing into the ground. Whatever was injected into you has begun to spread, so you make the decision to seal the foreign substance the best you can. Unfortunately, this also has the effect of making both your arm and wing more useless than they already are.

The colossal insect takes to the underground once again with startling speed, and almost immediately you feel the dirt underneath your feet quake with activity.

You force the dirt to lock into place just moments before it smashes into the obstruction, and then teleport away as far as you can manage.

You land shakily, knees almost buckling underneath you, but you quickly recover. However, you’re given little time to catch your breath, as you already feel the creature surging toward where you landed on the ground. The insect bursts from the ground near you, learning from its last mistake. Cold dirt rains down upon you as the creature encircles you very closely with its extensive body.

With a hasty seal, you lock as much of it as you can in place, causing the remaining unsealed portions to write and wriggle ferociously. You pull out your dagger and invoke your flame through your left hand, an unfamiliar sensation, but you’re more than capable of controlling the new facets that arise.

Pungent juices shoot out as you awkwardly carve your way through the creature’s carapace, they either boil on contact with your flame or stick heavily to your body. Once light appears again, you sprint as hard your body will allow, only to hear the thundering beat of many legs chasing after you.

You turn to see two portions of creature running toward you independently, the headless portion clumsily stomping on the ground without any grace.

Fascinating, but now you’re surrounded with only insect body in sight.

Another long sprint will put you in sight of the army, but you’re going to need quite a bit of energy to manage that, so you consider your options. Two large seals on both parts of the body and another round with your flame or… You look up and consider the logistics of teleporting directly into the air, mainly the issues of landing with only one good wing...Impossible, two would definitely be needed for that plan.

>Seal the creature, carve through with your flames, and sprint to the army.

>>43096954Your point? There were many different races and all of them fell in seconds. We're strong but it spread from our arm to our wing in seconds. By the time we reach the army which is rather far away we're going to be fully infected, and thus either dead, or killed of by the Usurper or Izu.

The fact that the creature’s severed parts can act autonomously of its head would mean that carving through yet again would give you three bodies to deal with, so that only leaves up…

You find yourself high above the dusty landscape and immediately free your wing from its seal. It rigidly wants to cling to your body, but you force it straight with sheer willpower. With teeth clenched you sail far through the air above the creature, the masses of the army growing larger as you progress. You let out a small but bright burst of flame in front of you, signaling them the best you can, before clumsily sliding across the ground.

In the distance you see the portion of the creature with the head still attached advancing toward you with less vigor, while the severed part crawls far behind at a sluggish pace.

The hurried footsteps of many soldiers can be felt through the ground, then heard rushing toward you, before they are finally all around you, creating a wall between you and the creature that was once Carmina.

Izu suddenly appears near you and immediately begins to channel his flames into your wound.

“Have a nice nap?” You laugh lightly as you watch him do his work.

“Not really.” His eyes still locked on your arm. “Worried thoughts kept bugging me while I was asleep.” A knowing grin forms on his face.

“Well hurry up with that, and then we’ll both get some sleep that isn’t on the ground.” You close your eyes and let the soothing flames fill your body, but your eyes shoot open upon sensing a certain person approach.

“Doesn’t seem that you got the chance to clear your mind, Sophia.” The Empress crosses her arms disapprovingly and then leans over to observe your wound. “A pain agent…Likely to paralyze enemies.” She straightens herself out. “You’re ordered to rest for the day. I’ll take care of any threats that may come up in the meantime.” She walks away assuming that you might object if she stayed around.

You’re not complaining.

Izu finishes, helps you back to your feet, and leads you off. “So, what’s a swing like?”

~

You awake in a haze, mouth dry, and limbs slightly sore. Without the slightest clue about how long you’ve been asleep, you rise quietly, as to not disturb the sleeping mound next to you, and dress yourself.

You finally slip your cloak over your armor and hear its voice call out to you.

“The final steps. Chose how you’ll use your knowledge so that you might reach them.”

Immediately you shake Izu awake, and receive an annoyed groan in response. He rises with his hair mashed to one side. “I’m ready.” He yawns.

With your future filled with plans involving The Broodmother, Aya, and then eventually The Empress, you carefully make your choice of how you'll grow your knowledge.

>>43097270>>43097387Pyromancy it is. Anyone feel free to post details of stuff you want to include. If it comes early enough, and isn't terribly outlandish it might just be added, as this is a very high level upgrade.

Your flames have always served you well and if you want to take claim of Aya’s army then you will need to leave little doubt about who the strongest Pyromancer is.

With your thoughts steered toward those goals, you find yourself far removed from your tent and now completely alone in a large void with only a single small flame to keep you company. The flame feels familiar, but you can’t quite place where you may have seen it before.

Its warmth isn’t comforting and soothing like Izu’s, nor is it caustic and wild like your own, it’s simply a flame without any influence of a user. You step closer and try to manipulate its form to your own will.

Without any warning, a massive bellow of an unseen creature wails in protest at your attempts, the flame perturbs from sheer irritation.

“Are you the original?” You ask, slowly moving your own hand toward the flame, trying to take it as your own.

It furiously screams in protest at your great blasphemy.

“Then…” You grin wildly. “I’ll leave you some of it.”

You immediately absorb a large portion of the being’s flame in your body and feel every detail as it merges with your own. You hadn’t noticed, but the being somehow managed to flee taking its remaining flame with it, but you’ve gotten more than you wanted.

Gruesome gray flames pour from your hand with the greatest of ease, leaving behind a hideous tar that spreads far, seeps into, and corrupts everything that it touches. The heat bites with unprecedented fury and voraciously seeks to feed. All of its raw power is completely under your control.

Your consciousness fades back into your tent, but to your surprise, Izu isn’t channeling his healing flames into you.

“That’s good.” He breathes a sigh of relief. “But I really liked that you flames were blue.”

You invoke a very small flame in the palm of your hand and watch as Izu recoils from the sudden heat. “Those kinds of details don’t matter, even if I could control them” You snuff the flame.

“Really~?” He invokes a small cloud of his flame and you watch as it turns from its normal pale yellow color into a soft green, then to a light purple.

“What are the differences?” You ask, curiosity not hidden from your voice.

“Just the color.” He grins in response. “I’ve been practicing while hanging out with the soldiers.”

“Practice something more useful.” You scold and push him onto the bed.

He sits up and wags his finger at you. “Surely you of all people can see the hidden use embedded within.”

You can hear him snickering in your mind, but then he stops suddenly as if sensing something.

He quietly starts speaking. “That thing that took the place of that girl…Maybe I could talk to it... to see what it’s like. That way you don’t have any surprises if you ever need to use it.”

You quite fine without hearing its distorted voice, but he does bring up a good point. You can force it to be obedient, but you’re still not sure what it might be capable of. However, you wonder if letting Izu speak to it is the best choice.

>>43098745I assume her healing us was the last act she had of her own before she got erased. Izu understand the irony of his line of questioning? Which suggestions did you like most for fire? Will we be able to change our fire's color soon?

>>43098767You're very welcome! It did gain its abilities as well, sorry if that wasn't clear.

>>43098770Her healing you is what severed the final ties she had. Not at the moment. I can't say that I had a particular favorite, but I did want to point out that some of the suggestions were of things we already had. I'm going with no on this final question, mainly because Sophia wouldn't see it as a priority at this point.